Do Friendships come with an Expiry Date?

by Anita Menon

This morning, I received a mail from a friend I haven’t spoken to in close to 4 years. The friend forwarded me a mail chain that we had once written to each other many years ago. The mail chain had close to 14-15 emails; all a testimony to the affection and camaraderie we shared once upon a time. I read through the mail chain couple of times, savouring all the good will and warmth that emanated from it. It took me several minutes to realize that I was transported to a time in my past, to a world where things were so different from what they are now. People were different, circumstances were different and the meanings that I attached to them were different. At that time of my life, those friendships meant the world to me. I would do anything for those friendships, to keep them, to nurture them and to hang on to the last bits of them. I am the emotional sort. Not the one who breaks into tears for the slightest of reasons but the one who would try to keep relationships from breaking away because they meant so much at one point in time.

Why this rant?

Well that email chain triggered a hot debate in my head for the longest time today. I realized that most friendships that meant the world to me once upon a time, were either dead or irrelevant. Do friendships like many relationships in life come with an expiry date, I wondered for a better part of today.

I looked at my Facebook page and wondered if getting back in touch with my childhood friends has in any way brought back the closeness that we once shared? I think not. If not anything else, Facebook has actually distanced me from them. It shouldn’t take much to realize that it has made every single emotion incredibly transactional in nature. I ‘like’ my friend’s updates, their photos, and wish them birthdays when Facebook reminds me. Back then I remembered it just like that. Nobody needed to remind me that it was my friend’s birthday.

If I were to start writing about how Facebook has actually denigrated every emotion, every feeling and every occasion in our life, it would make for a separate blog post.

There was a time, when I was in school, I had the largest bunch of friends. They were all my best friends. Every single one of them. As I grew older, my circle shrunk and I had fewer good ones and hardly any best friends. At my workplace again the number dwindled and the number of good acquaintances was higher. But I never stopped getting attached. I felt for them and wanted to be there for them.

Long ago, I was the sort who even with the knowledge that certain friendships were dying, would try and cling to its last traces. I would go above and beyond to see if it can be saved, knowing fully well, how futile the whole endeavour is actually when the other person in the equation has given up and started walking in the other direction. I cling more, I feel more desperate and resort to radical measures. That is my Achilles heel by husband told me one day. I expect too much and I cling too much. I had to learn to let go. I decided to start learning how to let go. It was painful. There was a lot of baggage, you know. But eventually I learnt to let go and here I am, able to write about it. It is only after I learnt my lessons the hard way, I have realized I really didn’t need them now. During that frame of my life, it suited both of us ( my friend and me) but not anymore. I could say no. I could say I am okay without you. I wrote back to my friend who had sent me the mail chain and thanked profusely for taking me back to the good times in my life but I also found the courage to say that I have moved on. That I don’t need to delve on the past any longer. This cognizance came in tiny bursts like sunshine peeking in the through the sheer curtains that dance in the wind. The debate just died a natural death in my head towards the end of the day.

In the history of all my friendships, I take pride in the fact that it wasn’t me who let go first. I have learnt now that, as I grow older, I don’t need many friends but just a chosen few. I can count good friends on the fingers of my right hand or the left. These are the people I turn to and believe that they would choose me over others when they need support. They know me and love me unconditionally. I love them back.

Friendship today, to me, is even more precious than any other age or time and I am glad that I am able to make a distinction between those friendships that have a expiry tag attached to it right from the start from those that are here to stay.

Another of your vivid expressions 🙂
Things you mentioned probably go through many a minds, surely mine. I have come to believe that most friendships are either circumstantial or need based formations. There can be only a very few of them that go and grow beyond that. Ones that recognize that are the lucky ones 🙂

Couldn’t agree more, back when people hand wrote a letter to each other we took the time to think about what we wrote, our friendships, our lives, the words had meaning. Saying “hello” and “I Love You” meant something, not just a “LOL”, “Smiley Face”, “xo” and tap of the return button to post a one or two second emotionless string of computerized digits. Nice posting Anita. Great way to start the day…

This post sent me back in time.. I could so well relate to the part about finding it difficult to let go…there was a time when I believed that the huge cirle of friends will always be there and I was desperately clinging to it even when I knew the circle was breaking up..I used to feel awful for days together..But now, I have just a couple of friends who I know for sure will be there for me whenever I might need them..And yes, connecting with childhood friends on Facebook doesnt necessarily mean that we are connecting with the friendships we shared with them…

Wanted to leave a comment too, but didnt find the right words. you never know what lies ahead, and what friends would bring in. Some would have come and gone. but they wouldnt have left before leaving memories 🙂

[…] I could have returned to blogging but I blame it on the laziness inside in me in not doing so. But, this post by my dear friend Anita woke me up from my stupor and I knew I had to write. Anita writes such […]

Wow ! I loved it and could relate to each and every line in it. I too was super-emotional when it comes to friends and letting go. But, even after some bitter experiences, I ve come to distinguish between the real and the temporary ones. I no longer wear my heart on my sleeve..

i agree, good friends are few. facebook did put me in touch with long lost friends but after a point i was fed up of the fakeness on fb. everything was a timewaste. i’m probably one of the few who closed my fb 😀 so happy without it. i miss snail mail, i use post once in a while. its amazing how people have the time to update fb etc but don’t have the time to say hello. what’s worse is friends reply on fb quickly , but not otherwise lol

Friendships wither either voluntarily or involuntarily, by physical distance or just other things taking priority over regularly connecting with friends. I have had a first hand experience of it not being the same when I tried to rekindle (for the lack of a better word) a school time friendship. At the best, it remains as a cordial acquaintance when a friendship is let go (in the past) by either of the parties. Even I remain the one who kept clinging to friendships, and still do. One way friendship syndrome if you may….there’s nothing wrong with that so long as you don’t feel that you are the one trying always. The day one feels that, the friendship is near dying or rather transforming into a cordial relationship.